Atif Mehmood
Let us just touch on the US Supreme Court. Though perhaps not something about which people might discuss on an everyday basis, it can feel remote or abstracted from daily existence, yet its rulings directly affect issues of substance. The power it carries is great. And in recent times, the manner in which the Court operates is beginning to feel significantly different.
It’s not just what the judges are ruling. It’s how they’re ruling. It’s faster. There’s less explanation, less debate, less openness. That silence is what should make us all uncomfortable.
During the last term, the Court disposed of 113 emergencies. That’s an enormous increase over the 44 of the year before. These are meant for emergencies only, when the Court must intervene promptly. But now they’re being utilised for decision-making that shapes the nation’s policy. Over 40 of them had grave legal issues. In more than 20 of them, the Court enforced the side of the executive branch.
Here’s where it gets concerning. Most of these emergency decisions had no public hearing. They arrived without written opinions. In others, we don’t even know how each justice voted. No record to examine. No explanation to learn from. Just a short order saying how it all turns out. And done.
In the early part of this year, the Trump administration halted almost five billion dollars in foreign aid. It was not money for discussion. It had been authorised by Congress. It was for refugee programmes, for relief after climate-related disasters, for food assistance for countries confronting actual emergencies.
Lower courts held the freeze unconstitutional. The President couldn’t just keep money standing still that had already been appropriated by Congress, the lower courts said. But the Supreme Court intervened. It let the freeze stand. There was no hearing, no opinion, no explanation.
Five billion dollars in aid simply vanished from the pipeline. And nobody received an explanation as to why. That’s how quickly the game is shifting. And how quietly. There’s another problem receiving less attention but equal prominence. For decades, if a federal judge determined that a policy was probably unconstitutional, they could enjoin it nationwide. That made some sense. If it’s discriminatory somewhere, it’s discriminatory everywhere.
Unless it’s a class action, judicial decisions only affect the individual district. For instance, an internet filter blocked in California won’t necessarily impact people in Ohio or Florida; different lawsuits must be filed. As such, rights vary according to where you live, and challenging policies becomes long-winded as well as expensive for many.
There was also an issue in the recent Utah case for an 88-mile-long rail line. It’s being established for transporting crude oil over public land and also along small communities. Local people have officially asked the government for an overall environmental analysis. They requested a thorough examination of possible threats, including those concerning oil spills, pollution of lakes, as well as the effect on atmospheric health.
It waived the full review without doing any of that. It was approved by the Supreme Court. It was the ruling of the justices not to make the agency investigate all potential indirect effects when they seemed too speculative. It makes it harder for large projects to be held back for legitimate review. It also makes it harder for communities at the local level to fight for their health, their land, and their environment.
It wasn’t all of the Court this year going in the same direction. There was the big ruling where public safety actually came first. It was about ghost guns. Those are guns made from kits available online. No serial number. No background check. No building for others — just yourself. Police nationwide had long been saying how deadly they had become.
In 2017, law enforcers seized just over 1,600 ghost guns. That had risen to over 27,000 by 2023. In the state of California alone, law enforcers seized over 1,500 illegal guns in 2024, 39 of them being ghost guns.
The Supreme Court ratified a regulation requiring serial numbers and background checks on ghost gun kits. Seven justices voted in approval. It gave police a clearer way of tracing those guns. It was about the only decision this year that was clear as day, straightforward, and single-minded about safety.
But those kinds of decisions have been few and far between of late. It’s the big-picture trend that’s not hard to overlook. That’s the direction the Court is heading. It’s empowering the executive branch. It’s simultaneously making it more difficult for courts and communities to keep that power in check. And it’s doing it without much explanation.
Consequently, the others are not enlightened. And when the people do not know how or why something was ruled upon, it becomes almost impossible to respond. People lose trust in the system. They feel they are not being engaged in the decisions being made for them.
Parliament might intervene. Legislators might force the Court to issue written explanations for each ruling on emergencies. They might bestow lower courts with the power to issue nationwide protections anew. They might establish firm checks on presidential action when the constitutionality of a law is being tested in court.
Lawyers for the law stand up. They’re planning beyond states, pleading cases considerately, but attempting to keep abreast. But they’re battling an establishment speeding along faster than ever before and providing fewer reasons.
It is necessary for all of us to stay alert and attentive. In the event of objections, it is necessary for them to raise those objections in constructive ways. It must not be supposed as being beyond review or irrelevant to wider social interests.
Because it does matter. Once the right falls silent without anyone noticing, it becomes difficult to regain. Once the Court speaks but not in explanation for itself, the silence becomes all too familiar.
It should work for the people — not run away from them. So yes, something is shifting. And the values of fair play, openness, and democracy reinforce that point as well.
The writer works in search & advertising at Microsoft Ireland, with a master’s degree in business and computer science. The author can be reached at atif@live.ie.
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